


MONSTROUS WOMEN: EXPLORING THE USE OF MYTH IN THE MARGINALIZATION OF WOMEN (Philosophy 211)

by Madam_Melon_Meow



Series: Greek Mythology [1]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Analysis, Essays, Feminism, Gen, Gorgons (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Meta, ancient greek philosophy, aristotelian philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27688187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madam_Melon_Meow/pseuds/Madam_Melon_Meow
Summary: Women in Ancient Greece were considered to lack the control of the deliberate part of the soul. A common idea about beings with some perceived flaw in their soul is that they are monstrous, while portrayals of trading or losing the soul for magic are also a common theme. Women, greek and barbarian alike, are often portrayed by Greek Myth as magical (in an implied or outright sinister fashion), or as monstrous. I intend to investigate the label of the monster as a way of othering and marginalizing women, especially barbarian women, w this question:How did the portrayal of women in myth as magical and monstrous help perpetuate the associations of women as conniving poisoners or deviations from the male norm?By portraying women, especially barbarian women, as magical and monstrous in myth, it was easier to rationalize the otherness of women and explain why they were imperfect creatures that could not be trusted, further codifying the marginalization of women into the accepted academia by sealing it into the very fabric of their literary religious history. Further, the associations of these fictional women as sex-obsessed or sex-ruined were meant to display to real Greek women the dangers of sexual agency.
Series: Greek Mythology [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025200
Kudos: 4





	1. Introduction

An infamous quote from Aristotle’s Generation of Animals claims “he who does not resemble his parents is already in a certain sense a monstrosity; for in these cases Nature has in a way departed from the type. The first departure indeed is that the offspring should become female instead of male.”[1] This quote illuminates a deep-seated belief of the Ancient Greeks, that which regards women as monstrous for the sole quality of their womanhood. Another gem in the Aristotelian crown of ethnocentrism and misogyny is his claim in Politics that “the slave has not got the deliberative part [of the soul] at all, the female has it but it lacks control,” indicating that women cannot control logic and reason, proof that they must always be ruled by a father or husband.[2] Again in Politics, Aristotle puts forth the notion that “barbarians have no class of natural rulers, but with them the conjugal partnership is a partnership of female slave and male slave. Hence the saying of the poets— Tis meet that Greeks should rule barbarians,— implying that barbarian and slave are the same in nature,” a claim that places all barbarians (Non-Greeks) as unable to be trusted to rule, associating them with slaves, which lack the deliberative part of the soul.[3]

Aristotle seems to indicate that women in Ancient Greece were considered to lack the control of the deliberate part of the soul, a control that was necessary in order to be independent. A common idea about beings with some perceived flaw in their soul is that they are monstrous, something Aristotle also indicates, while portrayals of trading or losing the soul for magic are also a common theme. His description of barbarians as natural slaves with a lack in their souls would have no doubt compounded the notions of women as inferior if they were also barbarian. Women, Greek and barbarian alike, are often portrayed by Greek Myth as magical (in an implied or outright sinister fashion), or as monstrous. I intend to investigate the label of the monster/sorceress as an instrument of othering and marginalizing women, especially barbarian women.

The research question I intend to answer is as follows: how did the portrayal of women in myth as magical and monstrous help perpetuate the associations of women as conniving poisoners skilled with pharmakon, or deviations from the Greek male norm? To answer the research question, I have developed the following thesis: By portraying women, especially barbarian women, as magical and monstrous in myth, it was easier to rationalize the otherness of women and explain why they were imperfect creatures that could not be trusted, further codifying the marginalization of women into the accepted academia by sealing it into the very fabric of their literary religious history. Further, the associations of these fictional women as sex-obsessed or sex-ruined were meant to display to Greek society the dangers of female sexual agency, which needed to be kept under the control of a male guardian. In order to defend my thesis, I will first provide an in depth analysis of Euripides’ play, Medea, illustrating how this Ancient Greek performance centered on an infamous woman from their mythology exemplifies the use of the monster and of magic to cast doubt on the quality of women as human beings. Secondly, I will dive into the interpretation of Circe, an enchantress seen in Homer’s Odyssey, examining her as a symbol of reasonless intemperance. Thirdly, I will dissect Medusa the Gorgon, both monstrous and beautiful, examining her potential usage as a either a caricatured barbarian or as morality tale, warning Greek girls the dangers of unmarried pregnancies. Finally, I will bring it all together in my conclusion, then briefly touch on the limits of my work, as well as ramifications of my thesis as applicable to the modern world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOOTNOTES, introduction:  
> 11 Aristotle, _Generation of_ , Book IV, Chapter 3. [return to text]  
> 22Aristotle, _Politics_ , Book 1, Chapter 13. [return to text]  
> 33Aristotle, _Politics_ , Book 1, Chapter 2. [return to text]


	2. Section 1: Medea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> while the work is complete, i am still trying to properly format footnotes. please be patient with me.

Euripides’ play _Medea_ is an ancient Greek tragedy first produced for the 431 BCE “City Dionysia”, a combination of festival in honor of Dionysus and a competition for playwrights to present a trio of tragedies and a single satyr before an Athenian audience. Medea follows the story of Medea after her marriage to Jason, leader of the Argonauts. To better understand the play itself, I must first delve into Medea’s background, as her heritage and history with Jason was well known in myth, and therefore would have been familiar to the Athenian audience. “Medea” is a translation from the Ancient Greek name, Mēdeia, which means “cunning,” a negative connotation referencing her skill by deceit. Medea’s heritage is outlined as follows by Apollonius Rhodius: her father was King Aeetes of Colchis, the son of Helios the sun-Titan, while her mother was the Oceanid Eidyia, daughter of Oceanus the sea-Titan. This impressive bloodline, along with her status as a priestess of Hecate, goddess of magic, granted Medea powerful magic, and her status as a Colchian princess placed her firmly in the barbarian category, as Colchis was situated in modern-day Georgia, a distinctly non-Greek nation.[4] Medea’s mixture of non-human and non-Greek blood are important for later, as will be discussed in the context of her play.

But as for her first meeting with Jason, it was during his quest for the Golden Fleece, which belonged to Aeetes. Medea fell in love with Jason, and in exchange for his agreement to marry her, Medea assists him on his quest with her cunning and skill: giving him magical narcotics so he can survive monstrous oxen, spelling the dragon guarding the Fleece to sleep so Jason can retrieve it, murdering her brother so Jason can flee, and tricking the daughters of King Pelias into murdering their father so Jason could be made king of Iolcus.[5] Pelias’s son would eventually reclaim the throne and banish Jason to Corinth, where he and Medea settle down and have several children, at which point the events of the play take place.

The play opens with Medea’s Nurse lamenting at the situation of her mistress. Jason has abandoned his wife and children, marrying the daughter of King Creon of Cornith. Medea has gone into a deep depression, asking the gods to witness Jason’s betrayal of his oaths, fasting and weeping “to herself for her dear father, her country, and her ancestral house. All these she abandoned when she came here with a man who has now dishonored her. The poor woman has learned at misfortune’s hand what a good thing it is not to be cut off from one’s native land.”(6). The implication of Nurse’s words is clear: Medea made a grave mistake when betraying her family and nation for Jason, and now has no kin to turn to when Jason betrayed her. Medea is a barbarian led astray, and now she has been cast aside in favor of a proper Greek woman, left to contend with the murders and betrayals she committed in the name of “love.” The Nurse further speculates that Medea’s hatred has turned in the direction of her children, another hint at the lack of mental stability in the woman.

After Medea is informed by her children’s Tutor that King Creon intends to banish her and the children, Medea reaches out to the Chorus of Corinthian women, stating the following:

> Of all creatures that have breath and sensation, we women are the most unfortunate. First at an exorbitant price we must buy a husband and take a master for our bodies. For this is what makes one misfortune even more galling than another, to suffer loss and be insulted to boot. The outcome of our life’s striving hangs on this, whether we take a bad or a good husband.(7).

The pronouns used seems to indicate that Medea directly addresses the “female” chorus (all the women would have been played by cross-dressing men), and Euripides firmly places her as an every-woman, a representative of the female struggle, making her a sympathetic figure airing the general grievances of women.(8). The exorbitant price Medea mentions--in her case, fratricide and betrayal--also calls attention to the dowry that the Athenian audience is familiar with, a reminder of their experience and politics, helping to link Medea in their minds to their own wives and daughters.(9). Athenian politics, of course, are inherently linked to their own mythology, in which the men of Athens are born from the earth and therefore equal as citizens, while women are descended from Pandora, moulded from earth by a man but not born from it, which is what excludes Athenian women from equality, the outcomes of their lives firmly in the hands of their husbands.(10). Medea isn’t truly like the wives of the audience or the Corinthian Chorus, her barbarian status separating her, which she calls attention to:

> But your story and mine are not the same: you have a city and a father’s house, the enjoyment of life and the company of friends, while I, without relatives or city, am suffering outrage from my husband. I was carried off as booty from a foreign land and have no mother, no brother, no kinsman to shelter me from this calamity.(11).

This wording seems very similar to that of her Nurse earlier in the play, as Euripides underscores the emphasis that Medea is a double “other” to the Greek male audience, devoid of the marginal benefits that Greek women enjoy; unable to provide a legitimate heir to a Greek man, closer in status to a concubine than a good wife, and a stolen prize instead of a gift from her father--unlike the princess, a proper Greek bride under the control of her father, gifted to her husband as society demands.(12). It is at this point that Medea decides to take action, asserting that “in all other things a woman is full of fear, incapable of looking on battle or cold steel; but when she is injured in love, no mind is more murderous than hers,” which alludes to Medea’s identity as a woman, stirred to commit terrible deeds in the name of emotional injury.(13). This plays into the Greek attitudes about women as cowardly by nature, but willing to become abhorrent when their husbands betray them. King Creon, when informing Medea of her exile, tells her that he fears her retribution because “you are a clever woman and skilled in many evil arts,” reminding the audience of the dangers of clever women.(14).

She manages to secure a day to settle her affairs, and when he leaves, she ponders how to destroy him, his daughter, and Jason, declaring “best to proceed by the direct route, in which I am the most skilled, and kill them with poison.”(15). Women in Ancient Greece were often associated with the pharmakon, a word that simultaneously refers to remedy and poison. The imagery of a woman nursing a sick man and administering drugs was fearsome, as a woman could take advantage of a man to further her schemes.(16). Medea’s use of pharmaka saved Jason from monsters on his quest, but now he will pay the price of putting his life in the hands of a woman. Medea prepares herself for what will come next, culminating in this interesting passage:

> MEDEA: You must not suffer mockery from this Sisyphean marriage of Jason, you who are sprung from a noble father and have Helios for your grandsire. You understand how to proceed. And furthermore we are women, unable to perform noble deeds, but most skilful architects of every sort of harm.  
>  CHORUS: Backward to their sources flow the streams of holy rivers, and the order of all things is reversed: men’s thoughts have become deceitful and their oaths by the gods do not hold fast. The common talk will so alter that women’s ways will enjoy good repute. Honor is coming to the female sex: no more will women be maligned by slanderous rumor.(17).

There is a bit of an contradiction here: Medea refers to women as unable to perform noble deeds, but as the Chorus points out, Jason is an oath-breaker, and Medea is taking on the characteristics of the Greek hero, the masculine figure that swears by oaths and promises revenge on those that break them.(18). This idea of role reversal and a destruction of the natural order is emphasized at Jason's appearance, in which he attempts to berate her for her words. Medea reminds him of all that she did for him, of the betrayals, murders, and the spells and pharmaka, while he tries to claim that Aphrodite is the true source of his help.(19). Jason implies Medea is simply a victim of a love spell, and that without Aphrodite’s interference she would not have helped, downplaying her agency. Medea’s wording emphasizes her assistance, casting herself in the heroic role and Jason as the passive object that she has saved-- Jason’s rebuttal comes from his fear that Medea might damage his heroic reputation, as it is dishonorable to be at a woman’s mercy.(20).The implication is that women are supposed to be slaves to their emotions, unable to perform great deeds. Euripides reinforces this with Jason’s next words, after he claims that the marriage to the princess was a transactional strategy to provide money and royal brothers for Medea’s children, with the following lament :

> But you women are so far gone in folly that if all is well in bed you think you have everything, while if some misfortune in that domain occurs, you regard as hateful your best and truest interests. Mortals ought to beget children from some other source, and there should be no female sex. Then mankind would have no trouble.(21).

This casts Jason as a paragon of logical thinking, ruled by his naturally reasonable soul and able to act in the best interests of his household, while Medea is an irrational woman (doubly so for her barbarian heritage), a dependent that can only live well in a household run by a rational man.(22). Jason’s claims shift the audience, logical men themselves, to remember just how irrational women are, as Jason views his new marriage as a practical measure, able to act without being affected by base desires.(23). Medea’s insistence that “It was not this. You thought that in later years a barbarian wife would discredit you” does not shift the odds in her favor, as to the audience, this is a legitimate concern for Jason.(24). Medea refuses to accept Jason’s money or assistance from his friends outside of Corinth, further proving her as irrational to Jason.

The next interaction would have been most frightening to the Athenian audience, as King Aegeus, a mythical hero-king of Athens stops by to talk to Medea, unaware of her brewing plot.(25). Medea explains Jason’s betrayal and secures the infertile King’s assistance, making him swear an oath to protect and shelter her in Athens, and promising to use her knowledge of pharmika to give him children.(26). This parallels her now-broken agreement with Jason, but with roles reversed: Medea had agreed to use her pharmakon to protect Jason as long as he agreed to give her marriage (which implies children), while in this case Aegeus is demanded protection by Medea in exchange for a pharmaka cure for his infertility.(27). It is a devil's bargain for Aegeus, which the Chorus discovers after the King exits, when Medea reveals her plan:

> I shall send one of my servants and ask Jason to come to see me. When he arrives, I shall speak soothing words to him, saying that I hold the same opinion as he, that the royal marriage he has made by abandoning me is well made, that these are beneficial and good decisions. I shall ask that the children be allowed to stay, not with the thought that I might leave them behind on hostile soil for my enemies to insult, but so that I may kill the princess by guile. I shall send them bearing gifts, [bearing them to the bride so as not to be exiled,] a finely woven gown and a diadem of beaten gold. If she takes this finery and puts it on, she will die a painful death, and likewise anyone who touches her: with such poisons will I smear these gifts. This subject, however, I now leave behind. Ah me, I groan at what a deed I must do next! I shall kill my children: there is no one who can rescue them. When I have utterly confounded the whole house of Jason, I shall leave the land, in flight from the murder of my own dear sons, having committed a most unholy deed.(28).

This plan is Medea’s perfect revenge, allowing her to preserve her honor by destroying Jason utterly. Medea’s planned lies to Jason emphasize her feminine cunning, an evil trick to use her own children to deliver the deadly weapon to the princess. The gold heirlooms she plans to poison are a callback to the golden fleece itself, another gift from her paternal house that will lead to Jason’s ruin. Her next step, to slaughter her own children and leave Jason alive, is utterly destroying: she is taking away Jason’s legacy and forcing him to live in his grief. This is also a twisted way for Medea to rewrite her own history, destroying the tangible proof of her marriage by killing the offspring beget by it. Her choice of filicide rather than mariticide is horrific to the Athenian audience, as furthering the family line is of utmost importance, and killing the children as well as the Greek wife dooms Jason’s potential lineage.(29). This would have drove home the monstrousness of Medea, the evil that Aegeus allows into his city, which the Chorus laments:

> How then shall [Athens] this city of holy rivers or this land that escorts its gods in procession lodge you, the killer of your children, stained with their blood, in the company of her citizens? Think on the slaying of your children, think what slaughter you are committing! Do not, we beseech you by your knees and in every way we can, do not kill your children!.(30).

This wording about Athens as a particularly holy place does a few things for the audience. Euripides leverages Athens, a place known for favoring wisdom and moderate romantic eros, as naturally in opposition to Medea, who is dangerously clever and has given in to destructive obsessive mania.(31). This question of how such a city can receive Medea brings attention to the paradox of even allowing women into the city at all: they are necessary for reproduction, as Medea will be for the infertile king, but dangerous. The same holds true for the paradox of allowing barbarians into the city, although necessary for the city to flourish, as Medea will be by giving an heir to the city’s king, they are still unpredictable. Medea “embodies all the dangerous necessities and necessary dangers associated with otherness,” making her the perfect case study for the use of myth to further female marginalization.(32).

Medea’s plan works out perfectly, just as the cunning poisoner knew it would, the princess perishing in agony and her father dying as he tried to save her, leaving her to take up a sword- another sign of the distortion of gender roles- to slay her children in cold blood. This continued distortion of gender roles, coinciding with Medea attempting to assert her own agency, further dehumanizes her for going against what is Natural. As the children beg for help inside, terrified, the Chorus calls out to Helios, begging him to stop “the cruel and murderous Fury”, referencing the monstrous crones that deliver vengeance (which is also ironic, as they are honored by the citizens of Athens as protectors of justice).(33). Jason arrives to seek vengeance for his bride and the Chorus informs him of the filicide, stating the following as Medea appears aloft in a chariot pulled by the sun-dragons of Helios, dead children by her side:

> O detestable creature, utterly hateful to the gods, to me, and to the whole human race, you brought yourself to take the sword to your own children and destroyed my life with childlessness! Having done this can you look on the sun and the earth, when you are guilty of a most abominable deed? Death and ruin seize you! Now I am in my right mind, though I was insane before when I brought you from your home among the barbarians to a Greek house. A great curse you were even then, betrayer of your father and of the land that nourished you. But the gods have visited on me the avenging spirit meant for you. For you killed your own brother at the hearth and then stepped aboard the fair-prowed Argo.(34).

The use of “detestable creature” and “hateful to... the whole human race” signifies the final nail in the coffin for Medea: she is utterly inhuman, a creature removed from the human race by slaughtering her own young, the deus ex machina, (literally god from the machine, as her grandfather’s chariot is pulled aloft by a crane) emphasizing this loss of humanity, giving herself over to evil arts and abominable deeds.(35). Jason’s proclamation that he was insane to bring a barbarian back to live in his house makes a clear connection: it is not simply Medea’s womanhood that led her to this, but her barbarian heritage, a heritage so corrupt that she would betray her father and murder her brother- which omits Jason’s own earlier words that Medea only acted due to the spells of Aphrodite. Medea is a woman enslaved to emotion when she commits great deeds to help Jason, but is a barbarian devoid of humanity when committing terrible ones. Jason follows this statement by asserting that:

> You killed them because of sex and the marriage bed. No Greek woman would have dared to do this, yet I married you in preference to them, and a hateful and destructive match it has proved! You are a she-lion, not a woman, with a nature more savage than Scylla the Tuscan monster!(36).

The claim that Medea’s filicides were committed in the name of sex (not to mention the murders of her rival and the King) reminds the audience of the true horror of Medea, that not only is she an evil barbarian, but she is a female barbarian- though Jason rejects her as a woman, calling her a savage beast, this does not divorce Medea from the fact that she is a woman, and it is this final judgement of Medea that echoes in the minds of the Athenian men: women are capable of terrible things, unworthy of sympathy. Her loss of humanity is not inconsistent with her being a woman, because for the Athenian male audience human as a definition brought to mind Greek men, and her barbaric actions as a barbarian female, a bestial monstrous creature that did far worse than a Greek woman could, still serves to place both of Medea’s identities in the monstrous category. She could not have poisoned her rival if she wasn’t female, as the pharmakon is distinctly feminine, but she could not have murdered her children if she wasn't a barbarian. Medea’s, and therefore womankind’s, dehumanization is brought to its logical end in Jason’s final lines, as he proclaims “Zeus, do you hear this, how I am driven away and what treatment I endure from this unclean, child-murdering monster?”, giving Medea, rising in her chariot with corpses for copilots, the title of monster that she always deserved.(37).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOOTNOTES, Medea:  
> 44Rhodius, _Argonautica_ , Book 3.[return to text]  
> 55Rhodius, _Argonautica_ , Book 4.[return to text]  
> 6\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 7\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 8\. Nimis, “Autochthony, Misogyny,” 401.  
> 9\. Nimis, “Autochthony, Misogyny,” 402.  
> 10\. Nimis, “Autochthony, Misogyny,” 399-400.  
> 11\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 12\. Nimis, “Autochthony, Misogyny,” 402-403.  
> 13\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 14\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 15\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 16\. King, “Hippocrates Woman,” 163-164.  
> 17\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 18\. Nimis, “Autochthony, Misogyny,” 402.  
> 19\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 20\. Hopman, “Revenge and,” 162-163.  
> 21\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 22\. Osborn, Dumb Beasts, 130 .  
> 23\. Hopman, “Revenge and,” 162.  
> 24\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 25\. Nimis, “Autochthony, Misogyny,” 402.  
> 26\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 27\. Hopman, “Revenge and,” 163.  
> 28\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 29\. Hopman, “Revenge and,” 161, 164-165, 174.  
> 30\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 31\. Hopman, “Revenge and,” 172.  
> 32\. Nimis, “Autochthony, Misogyny,” 412.  
> 33\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 34\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 35\. Hopman, “Revenge and,” 176.  
> 36\. Euripides, Medea.  
> 37\. Euripides, Medea.


	3. Section 2: Circe

Medea certainly has the most explicit linking between women, barbarians, and the monstrous, but she is not the only dangerous woman in the family. Now we turn our attention to Circe, a barbarian enchantress. She is Medea’s aunt in fact, the sister of King Aeetes, a princess in her own right and the daughter of the sun-titan Helios and the Oceanid Persesis.(38). Circe is the Latin spelling of the Ancient Greek Kirkê, which is derived from the verb kirkoô- which means “to secure with rings”, and references the binding power of magic, clearly connoting her magical skill. Her first (by order of when the myths would have taken place, not their publication dates) appearance is in the Argonautica, Apollonius Rhodius describing her as an enchantress who bewitches strangers with powerful drugs, surrounded by primeval beasts that exist in an in-between state of part man and part wild carnivore. She lives on the mythical island Aeaea, which Jason and Medea flee to after the murder of Medea’s brother, so that Circe can cleanse them with the blood of a piglet and stop any retribution of the Furies.(39). This already gives us some important information about Circe, namely her skill with pharmika. Not only does she have mastery with using drugs to bewitch, Circe also has control over primordial creatures and engages in powerful rituals that can quell the primordial crones of vengeance, even when the crime is kin-killing.

Circe’s more important appearance in the context of this argument comes in Homer’s Odyssey, in which she is referred to as “a dread goddess of human speech”, a wording that immediately associates Circe’s abilities with sinister words.(40). It invokes the idea that Circe is not a proper woman, and will not be a kindly patron to Odysseus like the virginal Athena, a goddess associated with wisdom rather than trickery. The crew of Odysseus finds Circe’s home surrounded by wolves and lions that Circe “herself had bewitched; for she gave them evil drugs”, creatures that act tame and stand on their hind legs.(41). This is very specific phrasing, that the creatures are bewitched with evil drugs, again placing Circe in stark contrast with proper Greek goddesses like the virginal Artemis, who also is found with wild beasts, but does not need to use pharmaka to bring them to her. Circe lures in the weary men with her sweet voice and a banquet of cheese, barley, honey, and wine, mixing with it a potion that makes them forget their homeland, then strikes them with a wand and transforms their bodies into swine, their minds still human.(42). This shows the docile beasts in a new light, revealing the depth of her depravity: Circe is an insidious sorceress, a personification of the irrational, and therefore dangerous, female nature. She uses evil magic to steal these men, who wish to be home, and make them forget their families. In this respect, Circe is comparable to a corrupting courtesan, taking loyal men into her grasp.(43). By plying the men with lavish food and indulgent wine, Circe brings to life the danger of acting without moderation, the corruption that befalls those that surrender to the “affections of the body” and giving up reason.(44). This is a distinctly female-aligned concern, as it is women who are portrayed as unable to properly reason, foolishly swayed by base desires. There is a reason Dionysus, the Greek god of ecstasy and wine, was associated with female followers and was portrayed more “womanly” than other gods: Greek men, particularly Athenian men, were paragons of reason, with moderation as a key virtue. Circe drugging the men in their food calls attention to the untrustworthiness women, her scheming nature causing her to take advantage of the men, weak from their misadventures and time at sea, almost sick with grief and therefore vulnerable to this evil outsider, promising rest and a warm meal but instead corrupting their minds and transforming them into beasts.

As Aristotle believed that a deficiency of reason in the head of household could damage it, we see the effects here.(45). Circe’s household consists of herself, the Naiads who attend her (female freshwater nymphs), and the beasts that were once men. With a woman in charge, and a barbarian one at that, her house is a trap, the xenia, the sacred rule of hospitality, betrayed, with food destroying a traveler’s thoughts of home via pharmika, and shelter becoming the woods or the pig-pen with the use of evil spells. Odysseus is saved from this fate by wise Athena, who sends the messenger god Hermes to give him moly, a potent herb that will protect him from the pharmaka and spells. Hermes also imparts advice to Odysseus, that he should draw his sword and charge her after she strikes him with her wand, whereupon she will “be seized with fear and will bid you lie with her”, also warning Odysseus that he must force her to swear an oath to not harm him, or risk her depriving him of his courage and manhood.(46). Hermes is quite literally delivering the wisdom and reason that can be used to overcome Circe’s power.(47). He is turning her own intemperance against her, revealing her as the irrational creature that she is, willing to offer her body in exchange for her life.

Odysseus follows the wisdom of Athena and is rewarded, Circe cowering when her potions and spells fail, bidding him to sheath his sword and come to her “bed of love.(48). When it comes down to it, it seems that this was the only way to encounter Circe and be successful, to assert his Greek masculine dominance by threatening Circe with violence until she submits, behaving as a woman is meant to and inviting the hero into her “bed of love”.(49). She transforms his crew back into men as well, and becomes a proper hostess, behaving as a wife to Odysseus, successfully corralled once under the thumb of a Greek man’s authority, her intemperance quelled by the paragon of reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOOTNOTES, Circe:  
> 38\. Hesiod, Theogony.  
> 39\. Rhodius, Argonautica, Book 4.  
> 40\. Homer, Odyssey, Book 10.  
> 41\. Homer, Odyssey, Book 10.  
> 42\. Homer, Odyssey, Book 10.  
> 43\. Labahn et al, “A Kind,” 151, 154.  
> 44\. Demetriou, “Essentially Circe,” 165.  
> 45\. Osborne, Dumb Beasts, 132.  
> 46\. Homer, Odyssey, Book 10.  
> 47\. Demetriou, “Essentially Circe,” 167.  
> 48\. Homer, Odyssey, Book 10.  
> 49\. Skempis, “Hermes,” 21.


	4. Section 3: Medusa

The mythos surrounding Medusa is ancient and confusing, various elements depicted in scraps of literature and broken pottery. Hesiod’s Theogony references Medusa as one of three Gorgon sisters born from Phorcys the sea-god of the deep and Ceto the mother-goddess of monsters. Medusa, who can petrify men into stone, is the only mortal gorgon, and thus the one beheaded by Perseus while she slept, her children Chrysaor and Pegasus springing forth from her neck.(50). Her name means guardian, and Medusa’s head was displayed, known as a Gorgoneion, upon the shields of warriors, as well as on the Aegis of Athena, the Archaic Gorgon glaring at the viewer with beard and fangs, snarling with a flailing tongue and large eyes, broad nostrils flared, curled shapes crowning her head.(51). According to Apollodorus, who described the Gorgons based on Greek artwork from his time, they “had scaly heads, boar's tusks, brazen hands, and wings. They had protruding tongues, glaring eyes, and serpents wrapped around their waists as belts.(52). Notably missing are the snakes for hair, and though they would soon populate the Greek artwork, they do not actually appear in literature until the Roman Ovid writes his Metamorphoses. In it, he explains that Medusa was once incredibly beautiful, and her hair was her most amazing feature. Poseidon was so taken with her that he raped the girl in Athena’s temple, horrifying the virgin goddess. Athena punished Medusa by changing her hair into ugly snakes, and it is for this reason that Athena wears Medusa’s head on her Aegis, to frighten those who would offend her.(53). There are a few directions one can go with Medusa, but I will focus on two: Medusa the barbarian warrior and Medusa the dead woman.

The Greek traveler Pausanias presents a more “historical” version of Medusa in his guidebook when attempting to explain her true origins. He claimed Medusa was the warrior-queen of a tribe of Libyan Amazons, and that she fought Perseus with her army when he attempted an invasion. Instead of being cut down in an honorable battle, Perseus treacherous murdered her in the night, but was so enamored by her beauty that he removed and preserved her head to display in Argos, where it was eventually buried in the market square.(54). This is an interesting claim, and certainly not without evidence. As described above, the Archaic depictions of the Gorgoneion on shields and artwork of shields, displays a masculine woman with a broad nose, curled shapes around the head, and large eyes. Take a look at this sort of artwork and you will see what I mean: the Gorgoneion looks like a caricatured African.

The Amazons were a mythical tribe of barbarian warrior-women, but to the Greeks they were very real, separated by distance not truth. The Amazons were often associated with Africa, frightening for their skill on the battlefield and the accompanying distortion of gender roles. It is possible that the original artwork was meant to displace a fearsome Amazon on the Aegis of Athena (who is a battle-goddess, do recall). Over time, more fantastical elements could have been added, until the curled objects around the head- previously meant to represent the tight curls of African hair- evolved into the shapes of small snakes curled into a hissing, writhing mass. The large mouth, reminiscent of modern-day racist cartoons, could have meant to portray large lips and the contrast of pale teeth against dark flesh, only later distorting into a fanged grin. The dark brown skin of the African is transformed into a scaly blue-black. If so, her purpose is simple, that frightening other, a bestial barbarian woman that would dare to fight.

If not, then another part of her myth is suddenly important: the presence of her children. Apollodorus, when writing about Hercules’ visit to the underworld, is careful to note the presence of Medusa as the only soul unafraid of the hero.(55). Recall that in her death, her children are born from the bloodied stump. In Ancient Greek medicine, it was believed that a tube ran from the vagina to the throat. With this knowledge, one could consider her death as that of a mother dying in labor. Assuming the father was Poseidon and they were conceived during the assault, and Medusa’s death is the result of an illicit relationship, an unmarried woman being justly punished for the loss of her virginity.(56). Athena, whose status of eternal virgin-hood has become her most important quality in this paper, still wears the Gorgoneion as a symbol of terror, this time as a reminder of the gruesome end an unmarried girl risked if she allowed herself to become pregnant.(57).

This is supported by the Gorgoneion being present in another myth: that of Creusa, a Greek princess who was raped by Apollo and bore a son named Ion, who she gave away. The Gorgoneion is the family token of Creusa, and when she meets the young man later in life, it is the recognition of the Gorgoneion pattern on the cloth she left with him that makes him realize her identity. It is lucky that he does so, as Creusa believed him to be the son of her husband, here to steal her father’s land, and was ready to kill Ion with a drop of the Gorgon’s blood. Creusa’s inheritance included two such drops: one that could cure any ailment, and one that could kill.(58). The drops of blood with dual purposes once again recalls the pharmakon, both healing and hurting. The effect of an assault damaging a rape victim to the point where she nearly kills her own son with the blood of another rape victim seems to use Medusa as the dead woman to further the warning. “Look here girls”, the myth indicates, “if you let yourself get pregnant without a husband, you’ll either die gruesomely with the features of a monster, or live damaged and commit the deeds of one”! This is further supported by the fact that Medusa’s curse included petrification of men- stiffening them in a way that could indicate a metaphorical erection, a reminder of how dangerous it was to unmarried beauty to be seen.

But what of the features on the Gorgoneion? If Medusa truly does represent a woman dead in childbirth, then the answer is simple. As any person from Ancient times could tell you, an unpreserved corpse does not keep well. One to two weeks after death, the gasses from the body’s decomposition cause the corpse to expand. The tongue swells, pushing out of the mouth, and eyes bulging and protruding grotesquely from the sockets. The entire face bloats, the features broadening, the lips pulling back from the teeth. The hair even detaches from the scalp, creating the illusion of length.(59). All of a sudden, the fearsome and distorted features of the Gorgoneion no longer seem so caricatured. The scaly head, with its blue-black coloration, shows the discoloration of the corpse itself. Medusa’s present in Hades during the trials of Hercules makes sense: she is where she belongs. Her mortality, which separates her from her sisters but is never explained, is exactly so she can die, the price of her offence. Finally, death at the hands of Perseus, one of Athena’s favored heroes, is the virgin goddess ensuring justice is served.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOOTNOTES, Medusa:  
> 50\. Hesiod, Theogony.  
> 51\. Wilk, Medusa: Solving, 32.  
> 52\. Wilk, Medusa: Solving, 21.  
> 53\. Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book IV.  
> 54\. Wilk, Medusa: Solving, 25.  
> 55\. Wilk, Medusa: Solving, 24.  
> 56\. Bachvarova, “Io and,” 434.  
> 57\. Bachvarova, “Io and,” 435.  
> 58\. Bachvarova, “Io and,” 437.  
> 59\. Wilk, Medusa: Solving, 186.


	5. Conclusion

The three women discussed above are all fictional, it is true, with divine lineage, mystical powers, and varying degrees of barbaric heritage. But in the times of Ancient Greece, these women were very real, and even before their stories were written down, they were well known, depicted on pottery, friezes, and shields, discussed in the oral tradition in lyrical or epic poetry. They appeared alongside Greek heroes, men like Jason, Odysseus, and Perseus, valiant warriors completing quests with the help of the gods. But these women were not heroes themselves, instead relegated to the role of love-struck sorceress, dangerous goddess, or fearsome monstress. They served a purpose, not to be the person that the audience connected with, but to portray the dangerous Other. Medea’s gruesome filicide and deadly poisons warns men to beware a barbarian wife, Circe’s drug-laced banquet and transformative magic speaks to the fears of letting female intemperance prevail over male reason, and Medusa is a double-edged sword, either portraying a fearsome barbarian warrior-woman who could only be defeated by killing her in her sleep, or a grotesque death-mask speaking to the terrible fate of a pregnancy without a husband. With these three women so popular in the public consciousness of Greek men, the meaning becomes clear: without controlling your women, they will turn against you, their skill with the pharmakon a deadly recipe- and a barbarian woman is the most dangerous of all.

There are limits to this interpretation, of course. It is possible that the audience of Euripides' play was more sympathetic to Medea’s plight than I have portrayed. It is further possible that the links between Dionysus’s androgyny and the intemperance of Circe are entirely fabricated. The book by Stephen Wilk that I used to understand Medusa’s connections to a corpse (Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon) spends a great deal of time comparing her features to Cephalopods, and an even greater amount claiming that the stories were simply meant to explain the three day cycle of a blinking star. I have, as many authors do, cherry picked the details that I felt suited my argument, treating my thesis as fact and emphasizing what made it so. But I feel that my points are sound, that the angles myself and my sources have examined paint a consistent picture.

The reason my thesis is so important is that the bigotry of the Ancient Greeks has not gone away. It has changed to suit the times, but it still features prominently in the public consciousness. We see it every time a fantasy story casts a non-white woman with a thick accent to portray the evil sorceress, or each time a mother accused of killing her her children receives a sensationalize trial while a male family annihilator is barely a blip in the mind. We see it in horror movies, where the Death by Sex trope assures the audience that the promiscuous girl will die first, while the unsullied virgin survives to be the Final Girl. We hear the phrase “poison is a woman's weapon” and think it to be true, when statistics show that 60% of poisoners are men. The Angel of Death trope calls to mind a female nurse turning medicine into murder, but it is men with this title that have historically triple-digit body-counts. We see the fears of marrying barbarians reflected in racist groups triumphing white purity. These themes of dangerous, strange women who need to be controlled are as ingrained in the modern culture as Aristotle’s other teachings-- the public is simply unaware that the unpleasant ones should be credited in his name.


	6. References

Primary sources:

Aristotle. Generation of Animals. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1942. Accessed November 20, 2020.   
https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aristotle-generation_animals/1942/pb_LCL366.369.xml .

Aristotle. Politics. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1932. https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aristotle-politics/1932/pb_LCL264.17.xml?readMode=recto . 

Euripides. Medea. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1994. https://www.loebclassics.com/view/euripides-medea/1994/pb_LCL012.277.xml. 

Hesiod. Theogony. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 2018. https://www.loebclassics.com/view/hesiod-theogony/2018/pb_LCL057.39.xml.

Homer. Odyssey. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1919. https://www.loebclassics.com/view/homer-odyssey/1919/pb_LCL104.113.xml.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1916. https://www.loebclassics.com/view/ovid-metamorphoses/1916/pb_LCL042.321.xml. 

Rhodius, Apollonius. Argonautica. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 2009. https://www.loebclassics.com/view/apollonius_rhodes-argonautica/2009/pb_LCL001.31.xml. 

Secondary Sources:

Bachvarova, Mary R. "Io and the Gorgon: Ancient Greek Medical and Mythical Constructions of the Interaction Between Women’s Experiences of Sex and Birth." Arethusa 46, no. 3 (2013): 415-446. doi:10.1353/are.2013.0022.

Demetriou, Tania. "'Essentially Circe': Spenser, Homer, and the Homeric Tradition." Translation and Literature 15, no. 2 (2006): 151-76. Accessed November 20, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40340035.

Hopman, Marianne. "Revenge and Mythopoiesis in Euripides' "Medea"." Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 138, no. 1 (2008): 155-83. Accessed November 20, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40212078.

King, Helen. Hippocrates' Woman : Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece, Taylor & Francis Group, 1998. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unc/detail.action?docID=165393. Created from unc on 2020-06-05 11:23:33

Labahn, Michael, and Peerbolte, Bert Jan Lietaert, eds. A Kind of Magic : Understanding Magic in the New Testament and Its Religious Environment. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2007. Accessed November 20, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Nimis, Stephen A. "Autochthony, Misogyny, and Harmony: Medea 824-45." Arethusa 40, no. 3 (2007): 397-420. doi:10.1353/are.2007.0024.

Osborne, Catherine. Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers. Oxford Scholarship Online. Oxford University Press, May 2008.   
https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199282067.001.0001/acprof-9780199282067. 

Skempis, M. (2018). Hermes, Odysseus, and Catalogues of Goddesses in the Odyssey. Retrieved November 20, 2020, from https://doi-org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/10.1515/anab-2017-0102 .

Wilk, Stephen R.. Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon. Cary: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2000. Accessed November 20, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Databases:

ITHAKA. (2020). JSTOR. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.jstor.org/.

Loeb, James, 2020. https://www-loebclassics-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/. 

L'Année Philologique: Bibliography of the Classical World. (2020). Retrieved November 23, 2020, from http://cpps.brepolis.net.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/aph/search.cfm. 

The database I found most helpful was the Loeb Classics database, and it was through this that I found most of my primary sources. JSTOR and Breopolis were both incredibly useful for finding secondary sources. Without these valuable resources, this paper would not be possible.


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